Books by Marc Moskowitz
UC Press, 2019
Ask your librarian to be sure, but for most universities library e-copies grant unlimited subscri... more Ask your librarian to be sure, but for most universities library e-copies grant unlimited subscriptions which means if your library purchases this book a whole class could check it out at once.
Examining Internet culture in the People’s Republic of China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and the US, this book analyzes videos which entertain both English and Chinese-speaking viewers to gain a better understanding of cultural similarities and differences.
Each of the chapters in the volume studies streaming videos from YouTube and its Chinese counterparts, Todou and Youku, with the book using a combination of interpretative analysis of content, commentary, and ethnographic interviews. Employing a diverse range of examples, from Michael Jackson musical mash-ups of Cultural Revolution visuals, to short clips of Hitler ranting about twenty-first century issues with Chinese subtitles, this book goes on to explore the ways in which traditional beliefs regarding gender, romance, religion, and politics intersect. Looking at how these issues have changed over the years in response to new technologies and political economies, it also demonstrates how they engage in regional, transnational, and global dialogues.
Comparing and incorporating the production of videos with traditional media, such as television and cinema, Internet Video Culture in China will be useful to students and scholars of Internet and digital anthropology, as well as Cultural Studies and Chinese Studies more generally.
Since the mid-1990s, Taiwan's unique brand of Mandopop (Mandarin Chinese - language pop music) ha... more Since the mid-1990s, Taiwan's unique brand of Mandopop (Mandarin Chinese - language pop music) has dictated the musical tastes of the mainland and the rest of Chinese-speaking Asia. "Cries of Joy, Songs of Sorrow" explores Mandopop's surprisingly complex cultural implications in Taiwan and the PRC, where it has established new gender roles, created a vocabulary to express individualism, and introduced transnational culture to a country that had closed its doors to the world for twenty years. In his early chapters, Marc L. Moskowitz provides the historical background necessary to understand the contemporary Mandopop scene. The section concludes with a look at the manner in which Taiwan's musical ethos has influenced the mainland's music industry and how Mandopop has brought Western music and cultural values to the PRC. This leads to a discussion of Taiwan pop's exceptional hybridity, beginning with foreign influences during the colonial period under the Dutch and Japanese and continuing with the country's political, cultural, and economic alliance with the U.S. Finally, Moskowitz examines the construction of male and female identities in Mandopop and looks at the widespread condemnation of the genre by critics. http://www.amazon.com/Cries-Joy-Songs-Sorrow-Connotations/dp/0824834224/ref=asap_B001KHYFG2?ie=UTF8
Go (Weiqi in Chinese) is one of the most popular games in East Asia, with a steadily increasing f... more Go (Weiqi in Chinese) is one of the most popular games in East Asia, with a steadily increasing fan base around the world. Like chess, Go is a logic game but it is much older, with written records mentioning the game that date back to the 4th century BC. As Chinese politics have changed over the last two millennia, so too has the imagery of the game. In Imperial times it was seen as a tool to seek religious enlightenment and was one of the four noble arts that were a requisite to becoming a cultured gentleman. During the Cultural Revolution it was a stigmatized emblem of the lasting effects of feudalism. Today, it marks the reemergence of cultured gentlemen as an idealized model of manhood. Marc L. Moskowitz explores the fascinating history of the game, as well as providing a vivid snapshot of Chinese Go players today. Go Nation uses this game to come to a better understanding of Chinese masculinity, nationalism, and class, as the PRC reconfigures its history and traditions to meet the future. http://www.amazon.com/Go-Nation-Chinese-Masculinities-Studies/dp/0520276329/ref=sr_1_12?ie=UTF8&qid=1372189579&sr=8-12&keywords=marc+moskowitz
The Haunting Fetus focuses on the belief in modern Taiwan that an aborted fetus can return to h... more The Haunting Fetus focuses on the belief in modern Taiwan that an aborted fetus can return to haunt its family. Although the topic has been researched in Japan and commented on in the Taiwanese press, it has not been studied systematically in relation to Taiwan in either English or Chinese. This fascinating study looks at a range of topics pertaining to the belief in haunting fetuses, including abortion, sexuality, the changing nature of familial power structures, the economy, and traditional and modern views of the spirit world in Taiwan and in traditional Chinese thought. It addresses the mental, moral, and psychological aspects of abortion within the context of modernization processes and how these ramify through historical epistemologies and folk traditions.
The author illustrates how images of fetus-ghosts are often used to manipulate women, either through fear or guilt, into paying exorbitant sums of money for appeasement. He argues at the same time, however, that although appeasement can be expensive, it provides important psychological comfort to women who have had abortions as well as a much-needed means to project personal and familial feelings of transgression onto a safely displaced object. In addition to bringing to the surface underlying tensions within a family, appeasing fetus-ghosts, like other dealings with supernatural beings in Chinese religions, allows for atonement through economic avenues. The paradox in which fetus-ghost appeasement simultaneously exploits and assists evinces the true complexity of the issue--and of religious and gender studies as a whole.
http://www.amazon.com/Haunting-Fetus-Abortion-Sexuality-Spirit/dp/0824824288/ref=asap_B001KHYFG2?ie=UTF8
The Republic of China on Taiwan is the last nation in the world to be excluded from the United Na... more The Republic of China on Taiwan is the last nation in the world to be excluded from the United Nations. The world's seventeenth largest economy and Asia's most vibrant democracy, Taiwan has continually to convince the world of its historical independence from the People's Republic of China. At the same time, however, forces of history and contemporary economics make Taiwan's intimate cultural and economic ties to the mainland another crucial reality. Yet somehow under these singular conditions, the people of the island go about their daily affairs, making themselves a remarkable font of creativity and cultural innovation. The Minor Arts of Daily Life is an account of the many ways in which contemporary Taiwanese approach their ordinary existence and activities. It presents a wide range of aspects of day-to-day living to convey something of the world as experienced by the Taiwanese themselves. What does it mean to be Taiwanese? In what way does life in Taiwan impart a different view of Chinese culture? How do Taiwanese envision and participate in global culture in the twenty-first century? What issues (cultural, social, political, economic) seem to matter most? What does "China" mean to them today? Focusing on such broadly appealing topics as baseball, movies, gay and lesbian identity, television shows, and night markets, the contributors seek to introduce Taiwanese culture to a broad readership. In lively, non-technical prose, they approach their topics from a variety of disciplines in ways that will not only give students a comprehensive view of Taiwanese life, but also provide them with a range of theoretical perspectives with which to explore this fascinating nation.
http://www.amazon.com/Minor-Arts-Daily-Life-Popular/dp/0824828003/ref=tmm_pap_title_0
The growing field of popular culture studies in Taiwan can be divided into two distinct academic ... more The growing field of popular culture studies in Taiwan can be divided into two distinct academic trends; a different analytical framework is used to examine either locally oriented popular culture or transnational pop culture. This volume combine these two academic trends, firstly by revealing that localized popular culture in Taiwan is in many ways a merging of Chinese, Japanese, American, and indigenous cultures and therefore is a form of hybridity that arose long before the term became popular. Secondly, the chapters show that the transnational character of Taiwan’s pop culture is one of the more important ways that it distinguishes itself from mainland China. In other words, it is precisely Taiwan’s transnational hybrid character that helps to define it as a distinctive local space.
The contributors explore how traditional Chinese influences modern localized lives in Taiwan, localized identity, culture, and politics as a contested domain with Chinese and traditional Taiwanese identities and Taiwan’s localization process as contesting Taiwan’s gravitation towards globalized Western culture.
Including chapters on baseball, poetry, puppets, and Harry Potter, Popular Culture in Taiwan is an accessible and stimulating read for those studying the culture and society of Taiwan and China as well as cultural studies more generally.
http://www.amazon.com/Popular-Culture-Taiwan-Charismatic-Modernity/dp/0415855098/ref=tmm_pap_title_0?_encoding=UTF8&sr=8-1&qid=1295639764
Documentaries by Marc Moskowitz
Funeral strippers work on Electric Flower Cars (EFC) which are trucks that have been converted to... more Funeral strippers work on Electric Flower Cars (EFC) which are trucks that have been converted to moving stages so that women can perform as the vehicles follow along with funerals or religious processions. EFC came to Taiwan's public attention in 1980 when newspapers began covering the phenomenon of stripping at funerals. There is a great deal of debate about whether this should be allowed to continue. In Taipei, Taiwan's capital, one often hears middle and upper class men complain about the harmful effects of this rural practice on public morality. In contrast, people in the industry see themselves as talented performers and fans of the practice say that it makes events more exciting. Dancing for the Dead follows this story, interviewing Taiwan's academics, government officials, and people working in the EFC industry to try to make sense of this phenomenon. The film includes footage from nine different cities across Taiwan, including EFC performances, a funeral, and several religious events.
The film is now available for free at: https://www.youtube.com/user/dauntinghat
YouTube Trailers: https://www.youtube.com/user/dauntinghat
Papers by Marc Moskowitz
The China Quarterly, 2008
This article explores the ubiquitous themes of loneliness, isolation and anomie in Mandopop (Mand... more This article explores the ubiquitous themes of loneliness, isolation and anomie in Mandopop (Mandarin Chinese language pop music). This is not to imply that people in the PRC and Taiwan are lonelier than people from other countries but, rather, that being human they experience these emotions. What is distinctive here is that Mandopop becomes a primary conduit to express feelings that are sanctioned in daily speech. The article addresses these concerns and uses in-depth interviews in Shanghai and Taipei to find out why Mandopop's themes of loneliness and isolation are so resonant to its fans.
The China Quarterly, 2012
The Journal of Asian Studies, 2002
Coffee was first raised as a crop in Taiwan by the British in the late 1800s. For all intents and... more Coffee was first raised as a crop in Taiwan by the British in the late 1800s. For all intents and purposes, however, coffee culture was a Japanese import during the colonial era. The Japanese model for coffee houses was remarkably similar to elite hostess bars today. An examination of the physicality of coffee shops must therefore include issues of economic and masculine priviledge and sensuality.
In the mid-eighties McDonald’s, and then more recently, Japanese coffee shop chains as well as US based chains such as Starbucks, ushered in a new ethos that prioritized standardization, economic and gendered egalitarianism, and an intense concern with hygiene, including removing nicotine, one of caffeine’s main competitors from the environment. Coffee houses thereby transformed to well lit, safe, non-smoking environments that quickly displaced the more traditional Japanese forms.
This chapter addresses the multifaceted sensory perceptions of a bifurcated caffeinated culture in Taiwan. In it, I hope to demonstrate that on one level coffee culture demonstrates a profound difference between East and West approaches to the stimulant. Yet, perhaps more importantly, this is but one example of Western culture being imported to Taiwan through Meiji Japan. Distinctive categories of West and East, local and global, thereby reveal themselves to be conceptual categories rather than tangible entities as even overt symbols of the West such as coffee were ushered in through the Japanese lens of Western imaginary.
The tensions between individual desires and the needs of the family exist in any society. Yet in ... more The tensions between individual desires and the needs of the family exist in any society. Yet in Taiwan there is a greater rhetorical emphasis on self sacrifice for the needs of family than in many Western nations. In the following pages I will draw on several interviews and closely examine five in depth interviews of domestic abuse in Taiwan in order to explore just how far individual sacrifices can be demanded in the name of familial responsibility. These are by no means common cases in Taiwan but they highlight tensions between individual needs and group obligations in starker clarity than average familial relations. Confucianism is so male oriented that its effects on women are understudied. The following pages will demonstrate the tremendous moral and psychological force that Confucianism has also had on women. The extent to which the women in these accounts have suffered for their families is shocking, yet their stories also highlight the fact that even in the most extreme cases of familial abuse, individuals still maneuver to fulfill their own wants and needs to the degree that it is possible. This demonstrates what I have called Quiet Individualism, as opposed to the more overt Western Enlightenment form of Individualism, in that individuals attempt to protect their own interests while maintaining an ideological commitment to Confucian precepts that familial concerns outweigh individual interests.
This article examines the rise and fall of a Daoist master in southern Taiwan. It is divided into... more This article examines the rise and fall of a Daoist master in southern Taiwan. It is divided into three sections: 1) an account of a day and a night spent with the Daoist Master, 2) follow-up interviews with one of his patrons in which she becomes disillusioned with the master, and 3) an analysis of ritual as moral fantasy and individual agency. In the third section I address the factors that made the religious master successful and the events that eventually led to his downfall. I also argue that the performative nature of religious ritual adds to the worshipper's sense of individual agency, thus placing her or him in a moral fantasy in which that person becomes the hero of a created drama. This, I suggest, emphasizes some of the more individualistic elements of Chinese religious belief and practice that have not fully been explored.
In this article I explore constructed realms of thought in the in the club I have named Laowai an... more In this article I explore constructed realms of thought in the in the club I have named Laowai and other western-style nightclubs in Taipei, Taiwan. These contested realities revolve around notions of foreign and local, masculine and feminine. In examining Taiwanese women's portrayal of selves as chaste in the setting of a pick-up bar we can explore the complicated web of contradictory messages in which purity is constructed and the foreign is simultaneously exalted and despised. In exploring these issues I address Taiwanese women's sexuality in relation to the representational appeal of, and ambivalence towards, western men. This, in turn, ties in with contested fantasies within one social space. The resulting analysis suggests that to reduce club cultures to the singular, even in one club, is a conceptual error, for there are several overlapping realities in any given locale.
In Popular Culture in Taiwan: Charismatic Modernity, ed. Marc L. Moskowitz, 1-22, 2011
Here I explore the relations between aural production, visuality and being, as they connect to th... more Here I explore the relations between aural production, visuality and being, as they connect to the new identities that are formed through Hong Kong’s production of Mandarin Chinese-language music, films and music videos. To explore these issues I focus on the movie Perhaps Love
(Ruguo Ai) [P. Chan 2005] and YouTube music videos relating to that film. Hong Kong has a long-standing historical symbiosis between its music and movie industries.
Perhaps Love includes a range of cultural metaphors that include Buddhist allegory as well as the interplay of cultural understandings of gender and geographical space. Seeing Hong Kong productions is both a form of knowing and of creative appropriation for the movie makers, for the audience, and for fans who create their own narratives with the new tools that are available to them.
In Popular Culture in Taiwan, Charismatic Modernity, ed. Marc L. Moskowitz, 168-180., 2011
Web Resources by Marc Moskowitz
This YouTube page includes three documentary trailers (two about funeral stripping in Taiwan and ... more This YouTube page includes three documentary trailers (two about funeral stripping in Taiwan and one about the game of Weiqi in China). It also features two short videos of religious self-flagellation at religious rituals in Taiwan. At the time of this posting it has over 670,000 views.
https://www.youtube.com/user/dauntinghat
Book Reviews by Marc Moskowitz
Uploads
Books by Marc Moskowitz
Examining Internet culture in the People’s Republic of China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and the US, this book analyzes videos which entertain both English and Chinese-speaking viewers to gain a better understanding of cultural similarities and differences.
Each of the chapters in the volume studies streaming videos from YouTube and its Chinese counterparts, Todou and Youku, with the book using a combination of interpretative analysis of content, commentary, and ethnographic interviews. Employing a diverse range of examples, from Michael Jackson musical mash-ups of Cultural Revolution visuals, to short clips of Hitler ranting about twenty-first century issues with Chinese subtitles, this book goes on to explore the ways in which traditional beliefs regarding gender, romance, religion, and politics intersect. Looking at how these issues have changed over the years in response to new technologies and political economies, it also demonstrates how they engage in regional, transnational, and global dialogues.
Comparing and incorporating the production of videos with traditional media, such as television and cinema, Internet Video Culture in China will be useful to students and scholars of Internet and digital anthropology, as well as Cultural Studies and Chinese Studies more generally.
The author illustrates how images of fetus-ghosts are often used to manipulate women, either through fear or guilt, into paying exorbitant sums of money for appeasement. He argues at the same time, however, that although appeasement can be expensive, it provides important psychological comfort to women who have had abortions as well as a much-needed means to project personal and familial feelings of transgression onto a safely displaced object. In addition to bringing to the surface underlying tensions within a family, appeasing fetus-ghosts, like other dealings with supernatural beings in Chinese religions, allows for atonement through economic avenues. The paradox in which fetus-ghost appeasement simultaneously exploits and assists evinces the true complexity of the issue--and of religious and gender studies as a whole.
http://www.amazon.com/Haunting-Fetus-Abortion-Sexuality-Spirit/dp/0824824288/ref=asap_B001KHYFG2?ie=UTF8
http://www.amazon.com/Minor-Arts-Daily-Life-Popular/dp/0824828003/ref=tmm_pap_title_0
The contributors explore how traditional Chinese influences modern localized lives in Taiwan, localized identity, culture, and politics as a contested domain with Chinese and traditional Taiwanese identities and Taiwan’s localization process as contesting Taiwan’s gravitation towards globalized Western culture.
Including chapters on baseball, poetry, puppets, and Harry Potter, Popular Culture in Taiwan is an accessible and stimulating read for those studying the culture and society of Taiwan and China as well as cultural studies more generally.
http://www.amazon.com/Popular-Culture-Taiwan-Charismatic-Modernity/dp/0415855098/ref=tmm_pap_title_0?_encoding=UTF8&sr=8-1&qid=1295639764
Documentaries by Marc Moskowitz
The film is now available for free at: https://www.youtube.com/user/dauntinghat
YouTube Trailers: https://www.youtube.com/user/dauntinghat
Papers by Marc Moskowitz
In the mid-eighties McDonald’s, and then more recently, Japanese coffee shop chains as well as US based chains such as Starbucks, ushered in a new ethos that prioritized standardization, economic and gendered egalitarianism, and an intense concern with hygiene, including removing nicotine, one of caffeine’s main competitors from the environment. Coffee houses thereby transformed to well lit, safe, non-smoking environments that quickly displaced the more traditional Japanese forms.
This chapter addresses the multifaceted sensory perceptions of a bifurcated caffeinated culture in Taiwan. In it, I hope to demonstrate that on one level coffee culture demonstrates a profound difference between East and West approaches to the stimulant. Yet, perhaps more importantly, this is but one example of Western culture being imported to Taiwan through Meiji Japan. Distinctive categories of West and East, local and global, thereby reveal themselves to be conceptual categories rather than tangible entities as even overt symbols of the West such as coffee were ushered in through the Japanese lens of Western imaginary.
(Ruguo Ai) [P. Chan 2005] and YouTube music videos relating to that film. Hong Kong has a long-standing historical symbiosis between its music and movie industries.
Perhaps Love includes a range of cultural metaphors that include Buddhist allegory as well as the interplay of cultural understandings of gender and geographical space. Seeing Hong Kong productions is both a form of knowing and of creative appropriation for the movie makers, for the audience, and for fans who create their own narratives with the new tools that are available to them.
Web Resources by Marc Moskowitz
https://www.youtube.com/user/dauntinghat
Book Reviews by Marc Moskowitz
Examining Internet culture in the People’s Republic of China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and the US, this book analyzes videos which entertain both English and Chinese-speaking viewers to gain a better understanding of cultural similarities and differences.
Each of the chapters in the volume studies streaming videos from YouTube and its Chinese counterparts, Todou and Youku, with the book using a combination of interpretative analysis of content, commentary, and ethnographic interviews. Employing a diverse range of examples, from Michael Jackson musical mash-ups of Cultural Revolution visuals, to short clips of Hitler ranting about twenty-first century issues with Chinese subtitles, this book goes on to explore the ways in which traditional beliefs regarding gender, romance, religion, and politics intersect. Looking at how these issues have changed over the years in response to new technologies and political economies, it also demonstrates how they engage in regional, transnational, and global dialogues.
Comparing and incorporating the production of videos with traditional media, such as television and cinema, Internet Video Culture in China will be useful to students and scholars of Internet and digital anthropology, as well as Cultural Studies and Chinese Studies more generally.
The author illustrates how images of fetus-ghosts are often used to manipulate women, either through fear or guilt, into paying exorbitant sums of money for appeasement. He argues at the same time, however, that although appeasement can be expensive, it provides important psychological comfort to women who have had abortions as well as a much-needed means to project personal and familial feelings of transgression onto a safely displaced object. In addition to bringing to the surface underlying tensions within a family, appeasing fetus-ghosts, like other dealings with supernatural beings in Chinese religions, allows for atonement through economic avenues. The paradox in which fetus-ghost appeasement simultaneously exploits and assists evinces the true complexity of the issue--and of religious and gender studies as a whole.
http://www.amazon.com/Haunting-Fetus-Abortion-Sexuality-Spirit/dp/0824824288/ref=asap_B001KHYFG2?ie=UTF8
http://www.amazon.com/Minor-Arts-Daily-Life-Popular/dp/0824828003/ref=tmm_pap_title_0
The contributors explore how traditional Chinese influences modern localized lives in Taiwan, localized identity, culture, and politics as a contested domain with Chinese and traditional Taiwanese identities and Taiwan’s localization process as contesting Taiwan’s gravitation towards globalized Western culture.
Including chapters on baseball, poetry, puppets, and Harry Potter, Popular Culture in Taiwan is an accessible and stimulating read for those studying the culture and society of Taiwan and China as well as cultural studies more generally.
http://www.amazon.com/Popular-Culture-Taiwan-Charismatic-Modernity/dp/0415855098/ref=tmm_pap_title_0?_encoding=UTF8&sr=8-1&qid=1295639764
The film is now available for free at: https://www.youtube.com/user/dauntinghat
YouTube Trailers: https://www.youtube.com/user/dauntinghat
In the mid-eighties McDonald’s, and then more recently, Japanese coffee shop chains as well as US based chains such as Starbucks, ushered in a new ethos that prioritized standardization, economic and gendered egalitarianism, and an intense concern with hygiene, including removing nicotine, one of caffeine’s main competitors from the environment. Coffee houses thereby transformed to well lit, safe, non-smoking environments that quickly displaced the more traditional Japanese forms.
This chapter addresses the multifaceted sensory perceptions of a bifurcated caffeinated culture in Taiwan. In it, I hope to demonstrate that on one level coffee culture demonstrates a profound difference between East and West approaches to the stimulant. Yet, perhaps more importantly, this is but one example of Western culture being imported to Taiwan through Meiji Japan. Distinctive categories of West and East, local and global, thereby reveal themselves to be conceptual categories rather than tangible entities as even overt symbols of the West such as coffee were ushered in through the Japanese lens of Western imaginary.
(Ruguo Ai) [P. Chan 2005] and YouTube music videos relating to that film. Hong Kong has a long-standing historical symbiosis between its music and movie industries.
Perhaps Love includes a range of cultural metaphors that include Buddhist allegory as well as the interplay of cultural understandings of gender and geographical space. Seeing Hong Kong productions is both a form of knowing and of creative appropriation for the movie makers, for the audience, and for fans who create their own narratives with the new tools that are available to them.
https://www.youtube.com/user/dauntinghat